Yeah, “zip gun” is a pejorative term for a homebrewed firearm. Some homemade guns aren’t too bad, but those are made by people who know what they’re doing, and they still vary in effectiveness, reliability, and safety. True zip guns, though, are nails-and-duct-tape affairs slapped together by anarchists or junkies that are as dangerous to the ones using them as they are to anyone on the other end. Steer clear!

I was under the impression that the “corporate” side is still there, but people just, you know, give a shit enough to protest things and form groups with a purpose beyond being sad and wearing odd clothes.

I’d say that it’s probably not so bad, since most of the people living there probably moved to the area by choice, but we haven’t got much backstory on the rest of the country. For all we know, Sincerists are as common as roaches and there are Reclamation jerks squatting in Oakland.
Still, for some reason I wish Templar existed. Not saying I’d like to live there, but just the idea of it is sort of nice in a horrifying way.

I guess I’d like it because I’d like a “Thinker’s” city where no matter the problems in your life there was a good “Coffehouse/intellectual” outlet and the city’s unique flavor helped it. Sort of also like Tangiers when Burroughs burnt himself out there, and it inspired his “Interzone”.

Looks like my comment a couple pages back may end up half-right afterall. :D Failing to fence it, Biggs might settle for getting a round to put in it. With luck, EJ will do something stupid and impulsive with it later and it’ll blow his goddamn hand off. (Can you tell I really really don’t like EJ?)

I like how precise Gordons prejudices are; Jake = ugly and dangerous. Also what Bakamoichigei said: they could not pay Gordon to take this sort of trouble, but he would be happy to sell a bullet or two.

I wouldn’t put it past Gordon to make a deliberately ambiguous statement about the gun that applies just as well to his opinion about the gun, the craftsmanship and Jake as a whole. It’d be intelligent, calculated and even witty, which fits right in with my psychopath theory.

Hmm. Not sure. Largely, it looks like scrap, but the handle is carved wood definately.

The Barrel / Chamber section is a bit confusing. I can’t personally place any scrap that would create that, shy of someone taking a solid -block- of scrap and drilling the barrel and chamber through it … which, frankly, makes sense. Jakes could probably scrounge up the tools needed for that operation – drill press, angle grinder, maybe some welding gear. It’s ugly, but … not unthinkable. The tolerances are lousy, accuracy is going to be lousy, reliability is ‘you take your chances’ … but it’ll probably work, and if you are close enough … it’ll make someone as dead as dead can be.

Thing is, I’m half surprised that there’s any worry about extracting the case – there doesn’t SEEM to be anything preventing it from simply recoiling out of the chamber. The only thing I can see between the chamber and the mousetrap firing pin assembly is … air … and I doubt that firing pin packs enough pressure to HOLD the case in the chamber unless the round is really anemic.

It looks sorta like they took apart a real revolver to make it? I guess it has to do with why they think they need to make zipguns and carry steak knives when even broke junkie war criminals on parole can get an apartment full of firearms. The way he uses “Jake gun” seems to imply more than just any old gun a Jake has.

Seems to me that the Jakeskin are a kind of apocalype cult. Everything falls apart, and when it does those that ain’t Jake is gonna have a time on they hands, Cause if you Jake you know what to do. But ain’t enough to just sit n wait… gotta help it along a little bit, a push here, nudge there. Either they all gonna get Jake or they gonna get dead n thas allright by me. The gun is like the Jakes, it got one shot, maybe it work and maybe it kill it’s owner. Got built from the cast-off n useless scrap, just like you gonna have to do for the world if you Jake.

In re Jake Gun: I don’t think it’s necessarily that they can’t afford a real gun, more the survivalist “if I make it myself, I know how it works, I know how to fix it, I don’t have to worry about getting parts for it when civilization goes to hell in a handbasket” mentality.

A Jake gun is a last ditch one shot weapon. Simply made by people whose primary weapon are long knives. Problematic mechanism but the Jakes take that risk. They expect others usually won’t take that risk, or risk taking the gun when the Jakes take retribution as a deadly serious matter. Would you buy one of their weapons from someone else? Not me. I’d tell them to leave now.